


Squish

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-01
Updated: 2012-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Put a bullet to me. Bullet to the brain-pan. Squish."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Squish

**Author's Note:**

> Meme - Tell me about a story I haven't written, and I'll give you several sentences from that story.
> 
> For emanga, The story where River Tam is a zombie.

"Mal, you are just going to have to accept that—that whatever those assholes did to her brain, it's changed her. Do you hear me?"  
  
River watches them from behind the bars of her makeshift cage, skin pale and gray, a bloody gash torn into her temple and an ugly, bruised bite mark marring the pale underside of her wrist, but her eyes—her eyes are the thing that makes Simon ache, because for all that they've seen these things milky-eyed and ravenous, hers are so _human._ Liquid and quick, the same eyes his little sister has always had. The same look of fear that she'd had the second he pulled her out of that laboratory, the same look of concern she'd had whenever he was sick—the same goddamn sad look she'd gotten when she'd whispered, "You take care of me, Simon. You've always taken care of me. My turn."  
  
Human eyes in a dead body, and Mal wants to _kill_ her. Not gonna happen. "It changed her. And you, you are not killing my sister."  
  
Mal's eyes do something complicated, a quick switch from calculating and infuriated to sympathetic and chagrined. His voice comes out soft, quiet. "She is salivating, Doc, just look at her. Salivating, because she wants to eat us."  
  
"But she's not, is she? She isn't making a damn move towards us, even though she could have ruined us when she was human. That _cage_ isn't keeping her in there. She is."  
  
"When she was alive." Mal's eyes are sad. The eyes tell a person's story, and his are so frustrated, because he doesn't know how to feel sorrow without feeling anger as well. "That's the word you're gunning for, Doc. When she was alive. I will not risk my ship for this—I won't. We've done enough for the two of you, you're all but family now. But this—this is too much."  
  
"She isn't damn well touching us, Mal! Look at her!"  
  
"I am looking at her! And ask yourself this: what happens when whatever is keeping her human sputters out? What happens when that little girl stops fighting herself, for even a second? What happens then, Simon? What happens when the hunger wins out?"  
  
River watches them with her human eyes, flesh sloughing away from her biceps, and Simon remembers her crying—confused and falling apart. Remembers what she'd said.  
  
_"Put a bullet to me. Bullet to the brain-pan. Squish."_  
  
Maybe that is what she'd want.  
  
_Squish._


End file.
